Some more DCU thoughts…
No X-Axis today (as I mentioned last time, I’m not getting the books until next week). But since I have some spare time, here’s some more thoughts on the DCU relaunch. Or at least vaguely related to the DCU relaunch.
I’ve looked at the individual titles before. Now let’s think about the bigger picture.
Here’s what we know. DC are relaunching their entire superhero universe in September, and revising continuity yet again. Some characters remain broadly the same, some have their back stories changed, and the entire population of the WildStorm universe is being retroactively folded into DC history. To make way for all this, a load of titles are being cancelled, and those that are continuing are wrapping up (or at least guillotining) outstanding storylines in order to make way for a clean relaunch.
So it’s a new continuity, but incorporating large chunks of the previous one. Though we don’t really know which chunks, save for a handful of specific stories that have been mentioned in interviews. It all sounds rather similar to 1985’s Crisis on Infinite Earths, which similarly attempted to consolidate multiple superhero universes into one, rebooting some characters at the same time.
The plot device this time round is the Flashpoint miniseries, which is really nothing more than a Flash story arc with spin-offs. The world has been changed, and at the end of the story it’s going to be put back, and that’s the explanation.
Step back a moment and you could be forgiven for asking: what’s the point? Why bother having an in-story explanation of a continuity overhaul? Why not just wrap everything up in August and declare that the New DCU begins in September? Flashpoint is, by all appearances, a self-cancelling story. It’s hard to see how anything that happens in it, beyond the bare fact of the continuity reboot itself, can have any lasting effects, save perhaps by introducing a couple of new characters. From a creative standpoint, do any of DC’s titles actually gain from having a back story that involves the alteration of history? Surely not.
But DC are trying to serve two different audiences. On the one hand, they want to bring in new readers. It seems pretty clear that the idea went something like this: following the enormous success of the Green Lantern movie, offer people an easy access point to DC comics. To that end, do something drastic, and send a clear message that you can begin here. Obviously that whole “enormous success of the Green Lantern movie” didn’t really happen. But the core idea makes some sense.
On the other hand, DC can’t afford to alienate their existing readers. It’s often said that superhero fans are too obsessed with whether stories “matter”, or at least that publishers have trained them only to care about those stories. There’s a degree of truth to this, if you mean “matter to the whole line”. It’s not an invariable rule by any stretch of the imagination – the Ultimate imprint was launched perfectly successfully, DC’s out-of-continuity All-Star titles did well because the A-list creative teams made them publishing events, and the likes of the Punisher have thrived for years without doing anything of great significance to the wider Marvel Universe. But there’s no doubt that if readers think your story “matters”, that helps.
So at root, the purpose of Flashpoint is commercial rather than creative – like Crisis before it, it validates the new DCU as being the “proper” one, albeit permanently altered. It exists to head off the risk of readers treating September as a jumping off point. DC are right to be worried about that. They know full well that many of their readers stick with titles out of a combination of inertia and emotional attachment. The last thing DC want to do is give those readers a clear sense of closure in August. Even if that might be the creatively “right” thing to do, commercially it’s risky – certainly in a weak market.
But this leaves DC with incompatible goals. They want to tell new readers that it’s a fresh start; they want to tell existing readers that it’s a continuation of what came before. Can you do both at once?
Well, up to a point. DC aren’t starting completely from scratch with a whole month of origin issues. The new continuity is being joined in media res – in the first month, they need to establish the key points and get new stories going. And that can work. I don’t think new readers picking up Superman #1 or Batman #1 expect or want a retelling of the origin story. It’s not how a new cartoon series would start. So, fine, sketch out the basics to introduce the character, and then go back to the details later on.
Since most of the characters are going to have established careers, there’s no great harm in preserving the key points of their history – just as long as you treat them as back story which has to be explained to new readers when it comes up. You can simplify that history enormously merely by keeping the key events that are still relevant to today’s stories and jettisoning the detail. Dump the false starts and stories that came full circle, pare it down to the bits that still really matter, and that’s your basic continuity framework. And from there, go forward.
In fact, many writers may have no choice but to approach matters in this way, since chances are they won’t be able to get a clear ruling on which parts of history are still valid. This is where DC botched the aftermath of Crisis, and they made similar mistakes with “One Year Later”. While it would be nice to think they’ve learned from their mistakes, the rumours of last-minute backstage chaos hardly suggest that this latest relaunch has benefitted from more rigorous planning than its predecessors.
Some of the problems are of their own making; by imposing this relaunch at short notice they’ve interfered with long-term storylines in progress. So Grant Morrison’s Batman Incorporated is apparently going to be put on hiatus for the relaunch, but return in 2012 to complete its plot. We already know that the general concept remains valid, since one of the new titles, Batwing, is derived from it. From the point of view of the individual story, of course, this is a good thing. But it leaves DC with a major storyline, in one of the key books that ought to be most attractive to new readers, straddling the relaunch – and that’s bad.
My instinct is that DC have the right general idea of trying to provide a ground zero for new readers, as well as clearing out a load of continuity clutter that ought to give writers more freedom. But a combination of unfinished storylines, fear of alienating the existing readers, and force of habit will lead them to keep referencing the previous continuity in a way that undercuts the relaunch. As somebody who doesn’t currently follow the DC Universe that closely, I like the idea of them trying to give me a jumping on point… but the more I think about it, the less faith I have that they’ll actually deliver one that holds up beyond the first couple of months.
Still, the ultimate test of success here is sales – not in September, but in the months that follow. At first glance, it sounds implausible that DC could find a sustainable audience for all 52 of their books. But then again, the August solicitations list 81 original Marvel Universe comics – of which 54 are issues of ongoing titles. Granted, that includes some double-shipping titles. But it shows that DC aren’t thinking in completely crazy quantities.
The question is where the sales for these extra books are supposed to come from. DC haven’t said much to indicate that the content of their comics will change significantly. That suggests the underlying theory here is that the product is basically fine, but that potential customers feel inhibited from jumping aboard. There may be some truth to that, with some readers. Marvel fans, or lapsed readers from the boom period, might be curious enough to be receptive. But completely new readers? Is the DCU really the product to be offering them? I’m sceptical – especially without the momentum of a hit film behind it.
The downside is the risk that retailers get saddled with a load of comics they can’t sell and the fragile direct market gets destabilised. That’s the worst case scenario, but it’s certainly within the bounds of possibility, and Marvel will be watching nervously. Frankly, it’s in Marvel’s interests for this to succeed – new readers in comic shops is good for them, further damage to the direct market is not. No doubt they’re already weighing up their options for what to do to regain the PR initiative, and chances are we’ll see something in the spring that’s meant to be equally attention grabbing. Unless the DC relaunch is a complete disaster, in which case Marvel will go into panic mode too.
As of right now, my bet is that DC will see modest but sustained gains across the board, simply because they’re dominating the news agenda among existing fans and they’ll win some new sales from the existing customer base as a result. I can’t see how all 52 new titles can possibly find a market at the same time, but to be fair, I can’t honestly see the likes of Demon Knights or Voodoo doing any better in different circumstances, so what the hell. Maybe DC are right and a rising tide will lift all boats. Perhaps this is the best way to launch them, since at least it raises their chances of success from “virtually zero” to “who the hell knows?”
If they get their marketing right, DC will get a few curiosity-seekers into the stores for the first month, but I doubt whether they have the right product to keep them coming back. I think there’s more than just accessibility that limits the demand for DCU comics. But then, the right product may be something so far out of line with the demands of the existing audience that DC would never take the risk of making it – and if nothing else, both Marvel and DC need to start steering their existing audience in a direction where they’ll accept the sort of material that would have broader appeal. Marvel, from the look of it, has chosen to ride out the downturn by thinking short-term and maximising its revenue from the core audience. At least DC is trying to cast its net wider.
I’m largely treating the relaunch as a jumping off point. For the last few years I’ve probably averaged around 35 DC books a month. Starting in September I’ll be down to about fifteen (mostly the Batman and Superman family books). I was kind of disappointed that many of my favourite books appear to be cancelled or radically altered. There has been some talk that there will be more number ones to come after September so maybe some of the books I am missing will be back but I’m not sure if I will be picking them up or not. I’m giving DC a chance to hook me with the books I will be buying in September but if they don’t wow me I’ll be dropping them and will be much less likely to try new titles in the future.
This could be a huge success for them or an absolute disaster, should be interesting times in the next year or so.
Another sign of the internal confusion at DC must be that much-publicised number of new titles. They’re not coming out one per week, there seems to be no direct connection to the fifty-two universes within the DCU — it seems as if they may be doing away with them — and I can’t imagine that there’ll be any connection to 52, and if there is, that’s not going to help new readers. It all seems so arbitrary.
@kelvingreen I can see it being a branding exercise. “52” was an audacious and largely successful universe-wide project, that I at least have fond memories of. They might be trying to capitalize on that. And having 52 titles makes the comics seem like part of a set (even though they aren’t really in any way) which helps to market them.
I’ve never seriously read DC comics, but I’m tempted to check out the relaunch. If it was a real starting-from-scratch reboot, no reference to old continuity and not just rewriting old stories either, I’d snap it up, but it’s sounding like an awkward compromise that’ll end up cancelled or re-rebooted again within a year. Even so, #1s do appeal to me, and so does being in at the start as a new mythos is created. I’m thinking I’ll read the whole 52 titles for the first three months, and buy them if I like them…
I just try to ignore the fact that it’ll cost about £200 a month to buy them all.
I hope Dan Jurgens makes a better job of JLI this time around. In his previous first issue after the Giffen era, he introduced Superman as an ultra Mary Sue and ruined years of character development for 2 characters within 3 pages.
I just realized that with same day digital downloads, DC may be vanquishing one of its most dreaded foes, the sales chart reports.
DC will be able to claim any sales numbers that they want, and if someone argues with direct market chart, they can just say that the sales are coming from the digital market.
Post-September sales look bad? DC can just claim they are good because of the digital market, as they panic retool the universe again. September sales beat Marvel, and they want to keep it going? They just claim digital sales remain great. It is like the Johnny DC books, except line-wide.
Hmm says:
I hope Dan Jurgens makes a better job of JLI this time around. In his previous first issue after the Giffen era, he introduced Superman as an ultra Mary Sue and ruined years of character development for 2 characters within 3 pages.
wasn’t this the build up to what became Extreme Justice?
I remember all the light hearted characters I loved being turned into hardasses and evil ice.
some of this stuff I want to try like Demon Knights and Men of War, stuff you don’t see in a super hero universe. I have the feeling from what Didio has said is a lot of fringe stuff are try outs for six issues so I see another round of number 1s coming in February and March.
After this whole continuity reboot was announced I read the same DC books as always for a week or two, then realised I didn’t care about most of them and dropped them. As stories in their own right, rather than bridging between interesting ones for the characters I like anyway, they weren’t worth the time or money. Of course I then realised that this meant I was reading them wrong all along and have pared down the number of comics I read fairly dramatically. Congratulations to DC for reviving more conscious consideration of what good comics are, even if the answer was “far fewer than I had previously believed.”
I think some fans who are concerned whether their comics “matter” are actually concerned over something legitimate, characterization.
Let’s look at Bart Allen, Kid Flash, formerly Impulse and Flash. He started out as something of a fish out of water type and was so literal minded that many of his thought bubbles were images. Many of his fans REALLY loved this version of the character.
As long as he’s in continuity some writer or editor may someday bring him back. But if the DCU says he never acted that way? Well there’s really no chance. Sort of like CoIE and Frank Miller combined to make it so there was no chance of a campy Batman in the late 80’s.
My guess is that whatever sales boost the relaunch brings will be gone within a few months. Probably some individual titles will have longer gains, but against the same old backdrop of line-wide decline.
“The right product may be something so far out of line with the demands of the existing audience that DC would never take the risk of making it.”
That, I think, hits the mark. As Elliot S. Maggin once wrote, must there be a Superman?
@BillyBissette brings up a great point about the measures of success, and the mixed blessing of same day digital downloads. Potentially, it could be another chink in the armor of the direct market, but more so than the present impact of mainstream bookstore magazine racks.
Paul, do you have any reliable means with which to capture the digital sales data? Or maybe this is more a question for Mr Frisch….
I’m assuming that the 52 titles are a first wave…
(glares at obnoxious blatant omissions like Shazam!, JSA, Booster Gold and Batman Beyond)
Because otherwise… GRRRRR….
Worst-case scenario, it’ll still take longer than a few months for the sales gains from the #1s to go down, since those gains should be fairly high.
Then again, I’ve read the articles by Hibbs and other retailers that make the interesting point that they just won’t have the cash flow to order ALL of the new big #1s in the quantities they could probably push, etc., and factoring in that side of things it becomes a question of how much retailers are willing to and can stick their necks out. And I have absolutely no idea what the answer to that is.
September will indeed be a very, very interesting month.
“I think some fans who are concerned whether their comics “matter” are actually concerned over something legitimate, characterization.”
Yes. Everyone should be framing it this way. You’re setting yourself up for snide comments from fools when you say “but the old stories won’t count anymore”. It is more accurate to point out out that consistency of characterization is simply basic story-telling. If you don’t know if major experiences shaped a character really happened, then you don’t really know what character you’re reading about. And inconsistency of back-story in serial fiction can also create non-trivial confusion.
That said, I would welcome a definitive, from-scratch reboot of the DCU handled by top talent. This obviously isn’t the one, but there’s always next year.
There’s no obvious way of measuring DC’s digital sales any more than we can measure their newsstand or trade paperback sales. But that doesn’t alter the fact that the direct market sales charts are the best source available. Bluntly, I don’t envisage a major influx of new readers to digital – certainly not at full price. And I think existing readers who switch to digital will probably have similar tastes overall to direct market customers, so it’s unlikely that the digital sales will really change the overall picture of what’s selling and what’s not. But you never know.
While I can understand why DC (generally) made the fewest changes to their highest selling books, that (and their statements about chasing the same audience they’ve always courted) are what ultimately made me decide that even the few titles I was marginally interested in weren’t going to be worth pursuing.
“Hey, thanks for taking a chance on something other than a Batbook or a Green Lantern title, now kiss it good-bye” just doesn’t make me want to risk getting invested in the new stuff.
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They might be trying to capitalize on that.
I suspect they are, which is part of my point. If they’re going for new readers, why are they tying it in with a series that those new readers won’t know about and that may even be invalidated by the reboot?
All this sounds to me like BND for spider-man. A reboot of such sort might bring about better stories while sacrificing some thins that the fans loved. However we’re not talking about just one book but 52! I doubt that even half of them will manage to have stories on par with what has come before.
Personally i have tried reading dc books in the past but each and every book has been so continuity heavy that most of the time i didn’t know what was going on, who was who (even in new series or in advertised jump on points). DC comics was very unwelcoming to new readers and has always been catering it’s loyal readers alone. I really doubt that a rushed event like this will work better. It will for some titles but still, i won’t be jumping on board yet
Bryan Q Millar has been kicked off Batgirl, but JT “Arsenal with his dead cat attack” KRUL gets 2 books. I hope Marvel snap Millar up, he’s really good at writing light hearted, fun stand alone issues.
Jumping-off point for me. Pre-relaunch I was reading 7 titles, most in trade: Batgirl, Red Robin, Secret Six, JSA All Stars, JSA, Power Girl. Jonah Hex. As it happens, DC is relaunching me out of their company. JSA is “resting,” Secret Six is dead, Red Robin is leading a team of strangers with new origins, so: no thanks, and the Batgirl I like is being booted for one I like in flashback stories, not as a replacement.
Suppose I’ll still read All-Star Western in trades. And some of those titles will probably come back. Till then, my wallet will be vacationing with the JSA.
“GREEN LANTERN sequel still in the works…”
“Still in the works” as “not cancelled yet”. Having seen GL, I thought it really wasn’t that bad, but was hamstrung by an over-complicated storyline, and even more by the excruciating banality of its willpower-overcoming-fear theme.
As a bit of totally useless anecdotal evidence, I am a life-long Marvel reader that sort of lapsed out of the hobby save for a few books here and there that interested me. That said, this DC relaunch has invigorated my passion and interest in reading comics, and I’m creating and modifying my pull-list for September and onward. There are enough fascinating sounding books that I’m willing to jump at least half wayish, picking up a few books that I might not otherwise just because I want a broad swath of what DC is actually up to.
“If they’re going for new readers, why are they tying it in with a series that those new readers won’t know about and that may even be invalidated by the reboot?”
They’re not trying to tie the relaunch to the “52” maxiseries, kelvin. Why would they?
If you were a new reader, do you really think you’d wonder if the number of titles DC is launching with is significant in any way? Most likely you won’t even give it any thought apart from “Wow, lotsa books to choose from.” You’re hardly likely to think “Hmm.. I wonder if this means they published a series called “52” at one point. I’ll have to check into that.” and nothing else in DC’s marketing of this relaunch is attempting to point new readers to a series they wrapped up four years ago, so how are new readers supposed to make that connection? They’re not supposed to make the connection, because it’s not a tie-in.
It’s just a number that DC has been having a bit of fun with since the publication of the series. Don’t over-analyze it.
Actually, Brian, word is that the number 52 was chosen because Didio originally wanted to do a line-wide reboot following ‘Final Crisis’, but Paul Levitz nixed it. The numbering is a remnant of that effort that for some reason has lingered on.
Seems to me that what may kill this whole plan is that the current DC heads already had their chance at this. Inifinite Crisis had a huge number of people reading DC comics and One Year Later was their chance to re-launch everything. And it didn’t work. Sales were the highest I’ve ever seen for DC before the re-launch and they sank quickly after that. I think it was because of exactly what they are doing now. You broke the momentum of people that liked a title and most of the new directions/titles weren’t so great. Doing it now when sales are already low and long time readers are looking for reasons to save money and I think this could be very ugly six months after the re-launch. And it all seems like repeating mistakes that aren’t very old.
Jumping off point. Getting Babs out of the chair was always going to be controversial — she’s a useful minority representative but keeping her in it despite all the magic and superscience options open to her is a virtually impossible elephant to ignore — but putting back in spandex was always going to be the massive and irrevocable dealbreaker for me.
And they’ve made it worse by ensuring there’s a front-line place for every single Y-chromo Robin while effectively negating any non-Babs version of Batgirl (in doing so screwing over genuine fan-favourite Steph Brown twice and yet again abandoning Cass to limbo).
It is very very clear that Didio is only interested in 18-34 males as his new target audience.
I honestly want to see this fail badly enough that Didio at least gets pink slipped. It’s people like him, who keep trying to recreate their own childhood golden age at the expense of new characters and ther fans who are so inimical to the continued good health of the industry.
Some good points, Paul.
To be frank, though, I don’t expect much of a mid- or long-term impact on the direct market at all. Sure, the first few months of the relaunch are going to get wonky. But after that? Bluntly, I don’t see how this is meant to be attractive to people who are not already frequenting the comics stores. At best, it’s going to reach a lot of people like me, who haven’t been reading a lot of DC Universe books and are intrigued by surprisingly many of the new titles. Then again, some current readers are sure to be lost in the shuffle. So, bottom line, I’d be very surprised indeed if DC’s overall or average sales ended up in a much different place than they are now. I don’t think the potential is there anymore, certainly not unless you do something much more radical.
And I think that’s fine, actually, because I’m putting a lot more stock in the digital aspect as the game-changer here. That will inevitably affect the market, because Marvel will have to follow suit before too long, and so will everybody else. And once that’s happened, we’re going to see lower prices. Combined with the booming tab market, I think that’s where the potential for attaining a larger audience lies, right now.
Bottom line: If DC only manages not to botch the digital side of things so horribly that they have to abort it, then I think just keeping direct-market sales at more or less their current level a few months into the relaunch will rate as a success.
(Sorry, only just now got around to this.)